has been established for 4 years, raised nearly 5 billion yuan in financing, lost 1.6 billion yuan, and has a valuation of 28 billion yuan. The AI chip unicorn passed the meeting 68 days after submitting its prospectus and successfully entered the "Science".
html On the evening of June 2, the Science and Technology Innovation Board Listing Committee issued an announcement on the results of the 33rd review meeting in 2020. Zhongke Cambrian Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as " Cambrian ") was approved for the initial public offering. The amount of funds planned to be raised by IPO this time is 2.801 billion yuan.
Cambrian mainly focuses on the research, development, design and sales of artificial intelligence core chips in various cloud servers, edge computing devices, and terminal devices. It has the halo of "genius teenager entrepreneurship", "backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences", " Huawei supplier". Before its IPO, it attracted the support of a number of celebrity capital such as Guotou Fund, iFLYTEK, Alibaba Venture Capital, Lenovo and other companies.
However, Nandu reporters noticed that the shadow behind the halo of Cambrian also exists: the business relies on a single customer and related parties, has continued to lose money for three years and is likely to continue its loss in 2020.
In addition, for the market, when it comes to Cambrian , the one that cannot be avoided is Huawei HiSilicon . This "funding owner" who once supported its entire revenue has now realized its own IP, and is gradually drifting away from Cambrian , becoming a competitor, and even challenging. The founder of
is from the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China. Jack Ma appears on the shareholder list.
was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange since applying for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board on March 26. By the time the first release was approved on June 2, it took Cambrian only more than two months to refresh the review speed of the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Behind the passing of the Cambrian lightning, on the one hand, it is the recognition of its fundamentals, and on the other hand, it is due to the strong support of the chip industry in my country's current market environment.
In fact, Cambrian was founded in March 2016. It only took four years from its start to its listing. Compared with the industry's predecessors, Intel , Nvidia, etc., the long-distance running has just begun. Founder Chen Tianshi has extraordinary experience. He was admitted to the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 16, and founded the Cambrian at the age of 31, and developed the first artificial intelligence chip.
Cambrian 's main business is the research, development, design and sales of core artificial intelligence chips. The main products include terminal intelligent processor IP, cloud intelligent chips and acceleration cards, edge intelligent chips and acceleration cards, and basic system software platforms that match the above products. It quickly realized the commercial output of technology at the beginning of its establishment, and successively launched the Cambrian 1A, Cambrian 1H, and Cambrian 1M series chips for terminal scenarios, the cloud intelligent acceleration card series products based on Siyuan 100 and Siyuan 270 chips, and the edge intelligent acceleration card based on Siyuan 220 chips. The three product lines of "cloud edge" are complete.
Nandu reporter noticed that Cambrian was already a star company before its IPO and had experienced multiple rounds of financing. Its strategic investors include well-known Internet technology companies such as Alibaba , iFLYTEK, Lenovo , as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as the "national team" funds such as Guotou Fund and Guoxin Capital have also appeared.
Cambrian Equity Structure (Pre-issuance)
Information shows that the latest external financing of Cambrian occurred in September 2019. Nanjing China Merchants Bank invested 800 million yuan and obtained 3.61% of the equity of Cambrian before listing. A rough calculation shows that the corresponding company's valuation at that time was about 22.16 billion yuan. Founder Chen Tianshi holds a total of approximately 34.36% of the shares directly and indirectly, and is the actual controller of the company. Based on the pre-issuance valuation, Chen Tianshi's net worth is approximately 7.6 billion yuan.
lost 1.6 billion yuan in three years, and its R&D expenses accounted for more than 100%
As a pioneer in domestic AI chips, the spotlight on the head of Cambrian has always existed, and praise and controversy are coexisting: revenue growth, loss expansion; relationship with Huawei HiSilicon "getting farther away"; main business path changes; company development prospects...
prospectus data shows that from 2017 to 2019, Cambrian 's operating income was 7.8433 million yuan, 117.0752 million yuan, and 443.9385 million yuan, respectively, and the net profit attributable to the parent company's owners was -380.7004 million yuan, -41.0465 million yuan and -117.9856 million yuan, respectively.Although revenue soared more than 50 times, it also lost 1.6 billion in three years.
(three-year performance of Cambrian )
Industry insiders pointed out that the AI chip industry itself is a capital-intensive track. It is normal to spend money on development and trade time for the future. As a company that chooses the AI chip track, Cambrian may need to endure the loss state for a long time.
The reason mainly comes from two aspects: one is R&D expenditure; the other is the amount of shares paid by equity incentives.
data shows that from 2017 to 2019, the proportion of the company's R&D investment in operating income was 380.73%, 205.18%, and 122.32%, respectively. The total cumulative R&D investment in the past three years is 813 million yuan, accounting for 142.93% of the cumulative operating income in the past three years. As of December 31, 2019, the company had 680 R&D personnel, accounting for as much as 79.25% of the total number of employees.
In addition, in the past three years, Cambrian has paid more than 1.3 billion equity incentives, especially in 2019, the equity payment amount reached 940 million yuan.
On the other hand, from the perspective of main business, although it has not separated from the main business of smart chip manufacturing, the focus has begun to change. The terminal intelligent processor IP business with the original gross profit margin of 99% has gradually contracted, and cloud services and smart cluster computing systems have gradually become new revenue growth points.
From 2017 to 2018, terminal intelligent processor IP was the core business of Cambrian , generating revenue of 7.7127 million and 117 million yuan for it, accounting for 98.95% and 99.69% of the company's revenue.
In 2019, "intelligent cluster computing system" became a big revenue generator, creating 296 million output value throughout the year, accounting for 66.72% of the company's total revenue, but gross profit The rate is 58.23%.
In the first quarter of 2020, the company quickly became cloud-based, and its "cloud smart chips and acceleration cards" business became the mainstream, accounting for 57.3% of revenue. According to data in 2019, the gross profit margin of cloud chips was 78.23%, which is also lower than the previous 99.9%. The migration of the main business center of
has caused its comprehensive gross profit margin to drop from 99.9% to 68.19% in 2019. In addition to the high fees, the continuous losses are not difficult to understand.
loses Huawei's large orders, and the "funding owner" becomes an opponent
In addition to losses, Cambrian also faces the problem of relying on a single customer and related transactions. Both of these cannot beat Huawei HiSilicon and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
According to the information in the prospectus, it is not difficult to find that Cambrian h The sales revenue of the top five customers of tml4 accounted for 100.00%, 99.95% and 95.44% respectively, with the top five customers having a high concentration. And from 2017 to 2018, all the largest customers were Huawei HiSilicon.
Cambrian three-year major customers
Nandu reporter found that in 2016, the newly established Cambrian was launched The first intelligent processor, IP Cambrian 1A. Subsequently, the IP of Cambrian 1A was integrated into the Huawei Kirin 970 processor and was equipped on Huawei's flagship mobile phone Mate10. Since then, Cambrian has launched an upgraded version of the IP " Cambrian 1H" , also integrated into the Kirin 980 processor. The cooperation between
and Huawei not only made Cambrian famous in the industry, but also made money.
data shows that the shipment of mobile phones equipped with Kirin 970 and Kirin 980 processors has exceeded 100 million units. From 2017 to 2018, thanks to IP authorization, Cambrian was recorded in 7 respectively 712,700 yuan and 114,255,200 yuan, accounting for more than 97% of the operating income. It can be said that Huawei HiSilicon is a veritable funder.
However, things changed in 2019. Huawei HiSilicon's newly launched Kirin 990 chose to use self-developed NPUs and no longer continue to use the IP of Cambrian . The popularity of the term "Huawei withdraws orders" remains high.
reflects revenue, This is reflected in the fact that Huawei HiSilicon's revenue contributed by Cambrian has dropped significantly to 63.65 million yuan, accounting for only 14.34% of the company's revenue that year. What's more important is that Cambrian not only lost this largest customer, but also admitted that "Huawei HiSilicon will have direct competition with the company in the field of terminal, cloud and edge artificial intelligence chip products in the future", which means that customers have become competitors directly.In response to the inquiry letter from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Listing Committee,
Cambrian said, "The company cannot find customers that can replace Huawei in a short period of time, and Huawei will continue to purchase a large number of company products in the future. It is expected that the revenue of terminal smart processor IP business will still decline in 2020." Fortunately, Cambrian 's goal is not to become a terminal IP company. According to Chen Tianshi's previous disclosure, making terminal IP is to prove his ability to everyone. If you continue, you will accumulate some capital and reputation, get some money, and then you can make cloud chips.
In fact, Cambrian began to make cloud smart chips in 2017, and its business has gradually shifted to cloud and intelligent computing cluster system services.
View 2019 Cambrian ’s top two customers are the Bureau of Commerce of Zhuhai Hengqin New District Management Committee and Xi’an Fengdong Yixiang. The special identities of both are relatively special, and both are government procurement. The purchased products are intelligent computing cluster systems, with a total amount of 288 million yuan, accounting for 97.3% of the business's revenue of 296 million yuan and 64.91% of the current revenue of Cambrian .
The company's third largest customer in 2019 is Inspur , which is a subsidiary of Zhongke Suanyuan, the second largest shareholder of Cambrian . In 2019, the company's cloud smart chip and acceleration card sales revenue was 78.8824 million yuan, of which 63.8443 million yuan were sold to the affiliated party , Inspur , and the related sales accounted for 80.94%. It is worth noting that the total project integration party of the first phase of Hengqin project is also Inspur .
continues to lose money, fail to make profits in a short period of time, fail to sustainably develop IP business, and high customer concentration are all written into the risk warning of the prospectus. The revenue capacity and prospects of Cambrian after its listing are the core points of market concern.
. In the inquiry response, Cambrian stated that in 2020, the company's main business revenue is expected to be approximately RMB 600 million to RMB 900 million, a year-on-year increase of 35.15% to 102.73%; the net profit attributable to the parent company's owner is expected to be -650 million to -400 million, and the net profit attributable to the parent company's owner after deducting non-recurring gains and losses is expected to be -800 million to -600 million. This means that the company will suffer huge losses in the first year of listing.
edited and written by: Nandu reporter Ye Lu
